


The Phoenix in the Birch Trees

by anistarrose



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Fictober, Gen, Same Coin Theory (Gravity Falls), Stangst, Young Stan Twins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 16:10:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16390934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anistarrose/pseuds/anistarrose
Summary: Stan doesn't know it, but in a past life he was pretty good at finding missing things. And with Ford lost in the forest late at night, he's going to need those abilities again.(Based off theSame Coin Theory.)





	The Phoenix in the Birch Trees

**Author's Note:**

> For the 23rd Fictober prompt: “This is not new, it only feels like it.”
> 
> This can be thought of as canon to [Some Sunny Day](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947964/chapters/34636421), but you definitely don't have to read either of these fics to understand the other.
> 
> (I just... really, _really_ wanted to write some Same Coin with young Stan, and that Fictober prompt was giving me major reincarnation/amnesia vibes. So here we are!)

“Stanley?” Ford calls out. “Sherman? Anyone?”

He regrets it immediately, as bushes rustle not far away from him and he can almost imagine eyes lighting up in the surrounding darkness, gleaming with hunger. 

(At least, he _hopes_ he’s imagining them.)

Suddenly, he feels very cold. It’s late April, supposedly good weather for a camping trip with his twin and his older brother and his older brother’s friends, but while the days have warmed to almost summer temperatures lately, the nights haven’t quite caught up yet. The wind slices right through his jacket, biting at his skin like pins and needles and sending shivers up his arms.

At least he’s not far enough away from home for the stars to be any different. They’re the only things he’s been able to recognize for… half an hour? No, it had to have been less than that, it _had_ to have seemed longer than it really had been…

Ford leans up against a tree and tries to picture the map of the forest that Shermie had showed him this morning. There had been a major road running between the top two corners, hadn’t there? So no matter where he is right now, if he goes _north_ …

Something caws in the tree above him, and he jumps. If Stanley had been there with him, he might not have even batted an eye, but _alone_ … 

He remembers hearing that when you got lost in the wilderness, you were supposed to stay put, so it would be easier for people to find you, but he _can’t_ just wait right here. It’s too lonesome, too eerie. 

(Besides, that whole staying put rule had to have been made with older, brawnier people in mind, right? People who wouldn’t make a ridiculously easy meal for God-knows-what predator that might happen to wander by?)

And he’s _pretty_ sure he was right about the road to the north. No, he’s positive. The image of that road on the map is as clear as day in his mind. It probably isn’t even that far away.

He finds the Big Dipper in the sky, uses it to point him to Polaris, and starts to walk.

***

“It’s all my fault,” Stan bawls, face buried in Shermie’s jacket. “I — I thought he was right behind me, b-but I didn’t check, and now Ford — Ford could be —”

“It’s not your fault,” Shermie whispers to him gently — but Shermie’s always been a pretty good liar, Stan knows. “I — I shouldn’t have let you two go off on your own so late.”

Shermie’s friends — two girls and two guys, all high school juniors or seniors — are huddled around the campfire. They’re not making any noises that can be heard above the crackling of the flames, but Stan can feel their gazes boring into him, judging him, _hating_ him for letting his own twin get lost. Wondering what type of messed up, evil child he is. 

(He doesn’t blame them.)

“We should go to the park ranger’s office and tell them what happened. They’ll know what to do,” one of the girls suggests. “I think it’s about a mile away?”

“Yeah, Carol,” Shermie replies, expression tight. “I’m gonna do that. You guys… you guys should probably stay here in case Ford finds his way back. Stan, you come with me.”

“What? But — but I gotta look for him! _I_ know where I saw him last, and I gotta —”

_i’ve got to fix what i messed up myself, fix my own stupid mistake, ~~absolve my crime~~_

“I know you know, Stan. But the park rangers know this _forest_ much better than you, and you can _tell them_ where you were when you lost —”

Shermie’s glaring at him now. He’s blaming Stan for all of this, he’s got to be.

(He’s not wrong.)

“But he’s — he’s my _twin_!” Stan cries. “I should be able to find him!”

“Twins don’t work like that in the real world, Stanley!” Shermie snaps. “I don’t know what nonsense Mom’s been putting in your head, but there’s no such thing as twin telepathy or _anything_ like that! Can’t you just grow up for a minute? If you go looking for him you’re just going to get yourself lost, or hurt, or —”

Stan tears himself out of Shermie’s grip and makes a break for the trees. “It’s no secret you hate me, so why do you care what happens if I get lost too?”

“Wait! Stan, I’m — I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it like — Stan! _Stanley_!”

***

It turns out that walking straight north isn’t very easy when the woods are dense as these ones are.

Ford’s a bit warmer on the inside now, since he’s been walking, and climbing, and generally trying (and failing) to find the road, but his nose is wet and his fingers are nearly numb. He tries to put his hands in his pockets to keep them warm, but he keeps losing his balance on the uneven terrain. So instead, his fingers keep growing colder and colder… 

He wants to keep moving, but he’s getting tired. His legs ache, and his eyelids keep drifting down. Maybe… maybe it might be best to wait out the night… 

Finally, he spots a cluster of birch trees, their white bark making them stand out even in the dim starlight. He hunches down in between them, unable to explain why they make him feel so much less alone, but too tired to question it.

He stuffs a few handfuls of leaves in his jacket for insulation, pulls his arms around his legs as tightly as he can, and lets his eyes close.

***

 _I’ll find him. I have to find him. I’m not going back until I do._

The yells of Shermie and his friends grow more distant, but Stan keeps running, until there are no sounds around him but his own footsteps and the hooting of owls, until his legs are aching and burning, until he’s back at the place where he first realized Ford was gone. He sets to work combing the ground for footprints, for broken twigs, for _anything_. 

He’s going to fix this. He’s going to prove that maybe — just maybe — there’s something more to him then being the dumb twin, the bad twin, the _evil_ twin.

But he finds nothing, and the words “evil twin” keep echoing in his head like a gong going off in an empty room, making him want to cover his ears.

(Still, it wouldn’t be so bad, if only he didn’t know those words were true.)

“Ford?” he calls out, voice cracking. “Sixer? Are you there?”

There’s no response, except for the noises inside Stan’s head growing louder.

It’s one of _those_ nights again, isn’t it? One of those nights when he knows things he shouldn’t, without being able to put any of them to words? One of those nights when he feels like he’s dreaming yet can’t seem to actually force his eyes closed, when he feels like he’s an intruder in the world, piloting his own body like some ridiculous, poorly-made _puppet_ that no one should be able to mistake for a human boy?

Worst of all, when all those thoughts and fears feel profoundly, inherently, horrifyingly _true_?

In the back of his mind, Stan knows that in a few hours it’ll all seem ridiculous, just like it always does — that he won’t be able to understand how he could feel these things, that he’ll barely even _remember_ what it truly felt like — but right now it’s all _here_ , pounding on his skull, trying to break him and change him, remake him, ~~revert him~~. 

_no, no no no_ no _, this isn’t_ me —

Sixer usually helps with these episodes (though they’ve thankfully been a lot rarer lately) — he grounds Stan, tells him wild stories that give him something to focus on other than the chaos inside his own head. 

But Sixer is _gone_ now, and it’s Stan’s fault _~~again~~ _ —

His heartbeat becomes the ticking of a clock, jumping and inconsistent yet _repeating its patterns_ , and Stan can’t _breathe_ —

 _sixer i’m sorry_ —

 _— i was a bad twin_ —

  
  
  


_His mother’s hand is on his shoulder, her expression a knowing smile. He’s young, barely six, and feeling lonely, because Ford is at the doctor’s office for a cough that won’t go away._

_“Don’t worry, my little phoenix spirit. You and your brother have your fates tied together, even more than most twins do. You’re never gonna lose sight of him, not really.”_

_She pats him on the head. “I’ve_ forseen _it.”_

_Two hours later and Ford is back, still coughing a bit but with Filbrick reasonably confident that it’s nothing serious._

_“Hey, Sixer?” Stan asks him, as they lie in their bunk beds reading comic books. “What’s a phoenix?”_

_“Oh, phoenixes are super cool! They die in a fire and then rise again from the ashes!” Ford pauses to cough a bit. “Where’d you hear about that?”_

_“Oh, uh… I dunno. I don’t remember.”_

  
  
  


Stan is _cold_. He barely feels connected to his own body, but he can still tell that the ground below him is freezing. And if _he’s_ cold, then _Sixer_ must be —

He opens his eyes, eyes he didn’t know he had, and the forest lights up as if ablaze.

But **this is not new — it only feels like it.** It feels new in the way that a shirt he hadn’t worn since he was years younger, inches shorter, would feel new — it fits him differently than he remembers, but he _does_ remember. Not distinct details, but feelings, sensations.

He feels calm, in control. He has the power to fix this, he knows he does.

This is why he’s here. Why he rose from the ashes.

One by one, he becomes each birch tree in the forest for just a moment each, looking through its eyes, checking what it’s seen. And when he’s on his sixth try, he finally spots a shivering figure in a familiar brown jacket.

***

There’s light spilling from the rips in the bark of the birches, a soft gold light that looks like it should warm Ford up, but doesn’t — doesn’t feel like _anything_. Yet something about it makes him feel safe, just as the trees themselves did… 

“Stanford?” someone yells, from not far away at all. “You okay?”

“Stanley?” The light is gone now — _was it ever there? Was it just a dream? Is_ this _a dream?_

And then Stan’s head appears between the trees, his hair a rats’ nest and his jacket sleeves torn. For a moment, there’s an odd, almost… _trancelike_? look in his eyes, but then his face lights up with a wide, familiar smile of relief.

And in that moment, Ford knows what he’s seeing is real, because all _this_ — this appearing out of nowhere, this relieved and overjoyed expression, this absolute mess of a boy — is pure isolated _Stanley_ , something he could never dream so vividly.

“I knew it! I knew I’d find you! Oh man, are — are those _leaves_ you stuffed in your coat? You’ve gotta be so cold…”

He sits down next to Ford, even though that results in both of them getting their shoulders pushed right up against the birch trees. But Ford’s grateful for it anyways, because Stan is _warm_ , practically on fire, in terms of body temperature as well as personality. 

(Like some feisty, hot-blooded phoenix.)

“I was… I was really worried about you,” Stan tells him quietly. “Let’s… let’s both try and not do this again, okay, Sixer?” 

“Of course,” Ford agrees. He finds himself letting out a quiet laugh. “You don’t need to tell me twice.”

A question that’s been nagging at him for the past minute or so finally arranges itself into words. “But how… how did you find me anyways? It’s been so long since I got lost, and I wasn’t really staying put…”

Stan blinks. “I… uh, it’s kinda blurry. I think I went back to where I lost sight of you, and… I dunno. I guess it musta just been dumb luck from then on.”

“Huh… maybe it’s a twin thing. Or maybe you inherited Mom’s sight!”

“Heh, maybe I did,” Stan chuckles, then puts his head on Ford’s shoulder and immediately starts to snore, so quickly that Ford assumes he had to be faking it for the sake of causing an annoyance. 

But he keeps it up, seemingly asleep for real, and soon Ford finds he’s drifting off himself, soothed by the familiar presence…

***

When Stan finds himself being gently shaken awake, he’s greeted by sunbeams spilling down from the clear early morning sky, the few clouds on the horizon tinted pink. He can see the sun rising between two of the birches, heralding the start of a new day — a better day, he’s sure it’ll be. 

_A different form, a different time,_ he thinks to himself without really knowing why, still half-asleep.

The hand on his shoulder shakes him a little harder. “Stan, are you okay?” Ford asks him. “Can you hear —”

The thought flickers away from Stan like a spark drifting up from a campfire, and he groans. “Of course I’m okay, Poindexter! Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Sorry, it’s just — you just fell asleep _really_ quickly last night, and I was worried that something might be wrong —”

“Did I?” His memories of the last night or so before falling asleep are foggy and distorted and jumbled all out of order. 

Weirdly, maybe a little ironically, he remembers saying that he didn’t know how he’d found Ford, and he remembers that at the time, it had been a lie, or at least a twisting of the truth. But now… he really doesn’t have any clue. Everything since running away from Shermie is a blur — disjointed images and feelings that don’t make any sense, that don’t quite feel _real_ … 

Oh man, _Shermie_. He was going to be so worried — Stan shouldn’t have run away like —

Ford starts to say something, but freezes. “Did you hear that?”

The boys both stay silent for a moment, and sure enough, in the distance a familiar voice is yelling.

“Stanford? Are you there? Stanley, I’m so sorry! I don’t hate you, I swear I don’t —”

“Shermie!” Stan scrambles out from between the birch trees and takes off towards the voice, Ford hot on his heels. Shermie barely has time to brace himself for the flying tackle-hugs that both twins strike him with in quick succession, and the park ranger next to him practically jumps as the boys leap out onto the trail.

“Shermie I’m sorry I know you don’t hate me and I know I should have listened to you but I found him! I don’t know how but I found Ford and neither of us is ever going to do that ever again!”

For a moment, Shermie just stands in stunned silence. Then he hugs both his brothers so tight he lifts them off the ground.

“You sure did, Stanley. I don’t know how either but — but you sure did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Brx pdb eh orvw, exw qrw dorqh,  
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>  _Ehjlq_.  
>  ***
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments are welcomed and appreciated as always!
> 
>  
> 
> ~~I swear Some Sunny Day will update before the end of fall but in the meantime please accept this as a peace offering~~


End file.
